Poll: Strickland maintains lead over Kasich

Gov. Ted Strickland is maintaining his narrow lead even though more Ohio voters than ever don't like how he is handling the economy and state budget, a new poll shows.

Gov. Ted Strickland is maintaining his narrow lead even though more Ohio voters than ever don't like how he is handling the economy and state budget, a new poll shows.

The Democratic incumbent is up 43 percent to 38 percent over former GOP Congressman John Kasich, virtually the same margin Strickland has held in the Quinnipiac Poll since March. The results seem to be an indication that the flurry of negative campaign ads for both candidates are having no net effect on the race.

"Incumbents generally start a campaign with a name recognition edge and that is certainly the case in the governor's race," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a release. "Sometimes as the challenger becomes better known the race narrows. That has yet to happen in this case, although the share of voters who do not know enough about Kasich to form an opinion is at 52 percent, down from 62 percent April 29."

While Ohioans barely give Strickland plus marks in overall job approval 44 percent positive to 42 percent negative he fares the worst of his three and-a-half year tenure on three key questions: his handling of the state economy (disapproval by 54 percent to 33 percent), handling the state budget (52 percent to 31 percent disapproval) and keeping his campaign promises (48 percent say he hasn't, compared to 31 percent who say he has).

Strickland's main themes four years ago were to "turn around Ohio" on economic issues and to fix an unconstitutional school-funding system.

"Kasich still has four months until Election Day and Strickland's other numbers show his potential vulnerability, but at this point the governor remains ahead despite the anti-incumbency wave sweeping the country," Brown said.

"The good news for Strickland is that he is ahead. Nevertheless, when an incumbent governor is getting less than 45 percent of the vote four months out, it should make him concerned."

Ohioans also say, by 45 percent to 35 percent, they would like an Arizona-style immigration law in the Buckeye State.

Overall, Ohio voters approve of Arizona's controversial new law by 48 percent to 28 percent. By more than a three-to-one margin respondents say immigration reform should move in the direction of stricter enforcement rather than integrating illegal immigrants into American society.

When asked about a frequent criticism of the new law, Ohioans by 43 percent to 40 percent say it will not lead to discrimination against Hispanics. And the idea of an economic boycott of Arizona gets thumbs down from 79 percent; only 10 percent would support one.

"Ohio voters like the Arizona approach to illegal immigration so much they would like to see a similar law passed by the state legislature," Brown said.

Such a proposal has been introduced in the GOP-dominated state Senate, but the chances of the measure winning approval from the Democratic-controlled House are dubious. And Strickland said he'd veto such a bill anyway.

The telephone poll by the Connecticut university from last Tuesday through Sunday of 1,107 registered Ohio voters has a margin of sampling error plus or minus 3 percentage points.